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Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Smoothie Queen

This week has been all about the return of the smoothie! Maybe it's my way of trying to think warm and spring?!?

Actually the smoothie drinking comes at the same time that I try to get back into a better gym routine. While I always workout to some degree 5-6 x a week, whether it's a long walk, yoga, weights, cardio, etc., they were being pushed back later and later in the evening, like starting at 8 or 9 at night. As I result I wouldn't get to sleep until 1am, but would still turn around and be in lab by 9 am, hence not get enough rest.

I also want to continue to incorporate strength training and yoga into my routine which I can get lazy about, yoga because it's time consuming, and weights because of all the muscle men using the machines. The latter is silly though because I can kick any of their butts the moment they step in one of ultimate conditioning classes or even a spin class :)

Now theat I have my goals set, I just need to form a good habit. It takes about 2 months for something to become a habit. Since February is a short month I have it pretty easy and as a result am giving myself a 28 day sweat challenge. As I said earlier, I usually give myself 1-2 days of rest per week. During the challenge my day of rest will consist of decreased cardio in favor of pilates or yoga, ideally at Crunch, but if classes do not fit my schedule I will use a pod class from Yoga to the People.

Back to the smoothies...the gym classes I usually take began anywhere from 5:45 to 7:15 on weeknights. For the later classes I can usually squeeze in dinner and allow it to settle, but I still get hungry when I get home. For the earlier classes it's pretty close to dinner and a smaller snack will not hold off my hunger. So...in walks the protein smoothie!

In this huge glass is relatively few ingredients-1 cup soy milk, half a banana, 1/2 packet of the below vanilla rice protein, and ice. Or for some extra nutrients throw in a handful of spinach, a.k.a. a green monster!